Richmond Police Officer Joanna Grivetti testified in the Richmond High rape case on Wednesday that she was the first crime scene investigator to take command of the area where police say a student was raped and beaten outside her school’s homecoming dance in October 2009. Grivetti was the sole witness yesterday to testify before the court, where she discussed the details of her evidence marking and collection.

Sheriffs escort four of the seven suspects to Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez. (Photo by Mark Oltmanns/Richmond Confidential)

Grivetti described abrasions she found on the victim’s toe knuckles, feet, and knees, which she testified could have been caused by someone pulling or dragging the student across the concrete in the school’s courtyard.

Several defense attorneys objected to Grivetti’s qualifications to provide expert testimony about the causes of the abrasions, and moved to strike any such testimony from the court record.

On Tuesday, Judge Gregory Caskey had overruled similar objections to Grivetti’s testimony.

But on Wednesday after listening to the officer detail her training in wound morphology and identification, Judge Caskey ruled to strike all testimony in which Grivetti described how the student acquired specific wounds.

In her testimony about the inventory of the scene, Grivetti said she placed around 30 small placards next to items of evidentiary interest. These included: a black walkie-talkie radio, a pair of brown pantyhose with a silver high heel inside one of the legs, a red bicycle, white cotton underwear found several feet from the student, a can of the caffeinated alcohol drink Four Loko (under pressure of a pending FDA ban, the maker of Four Loko announced Tuesday it will remove the caffeine from the drink), and a used condom found in a blackberry bush on the northern fence line of the courtyard.

In the three days of the preliminary hearing, several defense attorneys have paid particular attention to the black walkie-talkie radio found in the courtyard.